Source: Annamiticus.comBy Rhishja Cota-LarsonIn 2013, horrifying headlines about the voiceless victims of wildlife trafficking captured public attention around the world. Has a turning point in the war on wildlife crime finally arrived? Make no mistake: This is not a fight that will one day be “won” so we can all go home. Rather, it is an ongoing state of vigilance for law enforcement, activists, NGOs, environmental journalists and concerned citizens. Nevertheless, we need to recognize — and celebrate — our progress. I’ve been writing about wildlife trafficking for nearly five years and I think there is something different about 2013. World leaders have publicly committed to tackling the illegal wildlife trade and there seems to be a consensus that this scourge is nothing less than transnational organized crime which — and it should be dealt with accordingly. Wildlife trafficking breeds corruption in governments and encourages greed in the private sector. It threatens regional security and funds global terrorism. So, what happened in 2013? Experts agree that demand for wildlife products must be reduced. It can be said that from almost every corner of the world, demand reduction was a unifying battle cry for 2013. John E. Scanlon, Secretary-General, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), writes that CoP16 was a “watershed moment” for combating wildlife crime. “In addition to addressing enforcement, there was a clear recognition by CITES Parties that we need to reduce demand for illegal and untraceable products and to enhance overall public awareness of the severe damage caused by unregulated and illegal trade.” The Clinton Global Initiative launched “Partnership to Save Africa’s Elephants”, a coalition of non-governmental organizations brought together to “directly target the chief drivers” of ivory trafficking. This commitment takes a triple pronged approach by dedicating funding to: “stop the killing,” “stop the trafficking,” and “stop the demand.” A post on the ARREST (Asia’s Regional Response to Endangered Species Trafficking) blog notes that as part of NGO Education for Nature-Vietnam’s demand reduction campaign, banners discouraging consumption of wildlife were hung at nearly 30 markets in major Vietnamese cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh and Da Nang. More....

Source: Independent.co.ukBy Steve Connor Most people know of the African elephant as the great beast that lives on the open savannah but there is a lesser known African elephant that lives a more secretive existence in the dense rainforests of the Congo basin – and it too is under threat from ivory poachers. A lethal combination of logging and poaching has decimated the population of African forest elephants that have lived in the rainforests of the Congo basin for millions of years, isolated from the more famous African bush elephant which usually lives in the open savannah and woodland.Forest elephants are smaller than their savannah cousins and some scientists believe they are a distinct species, based on the way they look and behave as well as wide variations in their DNA sequences. But because they are hard to observe in the dense rainforests of central Africa, we know far less about them than we do of savannah elephants.What is known, however, is that forest elephants have dwindled in numbers and range from the days many decades ago when the occupied a vast swathe of west and central equatorial Africa, from Guinea and Nigeria in the west, to the origins of the River Congo in the heart of central Africa.Today, forest elephants are found only in pockets of rainforest in Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the past decade alone, scientists estimate that 62 per cent of forest elephants have been slaughtered for their valuable ivory – although their tusks are smaller than the bush elephant, their ivory is harder and therefore more desirable (and valuable) to carvers.Estimates of how many forest elephants are alive today vary enormously, from as low as 24,000 individuals to as many as 209,000 – although few experts now believe it can be this high. This wide variation is symptomatic of how little is known about this species, which conservationists have nicknamed the “gardeners of the rainforest” because of the vital role they play in distributing the larger seeds of the forest.The biggest threats to the forest elephant come from the logging roads that run deeper and deeper into the rainforests. These roads bring poachers armed with guns into areas that were once too remote for close human contact with these gentle forest giants.“Historically, elephants ranged right across the forests of this vast region of over 2 million square kilometres [over 772,000 square miles\, but now cower in just a quarter of that area,” said John Hart of the Lukuru Wildlife Research Foundation in the DRC, who was part of a large international study into the forest elephant published earlier this year.“Although the forest cover remains, it is empty of elephants, demonstrating that this is not a habitat degradation issue. This is almost entirely due to poaching,” Dr Hart said. More....

Source: Independent.co.ukBy Zac GoldsmithUp to 40,000 elephants, on average, are killed every year. That equates to one every 15 minutes. If that rate were to apply continuously, it would render the species extinct in the wild within 10 years. It is a tragedy, by any standard, that Africa has already lost some 90% of its elephants in the past half-century. What makes it an even greater tragedy is that the world so nearly put an end to that madness a few decades ago. In 1989, a worldwide ban on the international trade in ivory was approved by CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Levels of poaching fell dramatically‹not completely, but dramatically and the black market prices of ivory slumped.However, only 10 years later, malignant interests were able to have their way, as ever, and so-called 'one-off' sales were allowed. For example, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe were allowed an experimental one-off sale of more than 49,000 kg of ivory to Japan. In 2002, a further one off-sale was approved, which resulted in 105,000 kg of ivory being shipped to China and Japan. With so much legal ivory on the market, illegal ivory was easy to pass off, and demand simply rocketed.More elephant tusks were seized in 2011 than in any year since 1989, when the trade was banned. Sierra Leone lost its last wild elephant in 2009, and Senegal has only around five or ten elephants left. Congo has lost 90% of their wild elephant population, and so on through all the elephant states.This intelligent, thoughtful creature is being wiped from the earth, and not for any noble reasons. By and large, they are being butchered so that mindless people, many of them Chinese, can buy chopsticks, toothpicks, combs and other trinkets.Beyond the sheer pettiness of the trinkets, there is a more sinister motivation too. Ivory tusks and rhino horns are being hoarded as investments that rise in value as the species are depleted. In other words, investors buy these commodities in the hope that their source ­ the great species ­ will dry up.To any thinking person, this matters in and of itself, but anyone tempted to imagine that it is a remote concern to people in this country should think again, because this dark industry fuels terrorism and the worst forms of violence around the world. The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, recognised that in his comments at the UN in New York, when he said that: the illegal trade in these animals is not just an environmental tragedy; it strikes at the heart of local communities by feeding corruption and undermining stability in what are already fragile states. And the profits from the trade pose an increasing threat to security by funding criminal gangs and terrorism.In September, the Foreign Office stated that it was aware of reports that al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-backed Somali terror group, is being funded by ivory. Just two weeks later, there were the appalling attacks at the Westgate mall in Nairobi. Some 40 per cent of al-Shabaab's funding is thought to come from ivory. Blood ivory has also helped to finance al-Qaeda. More....

Source: Ens-newswire.comScaled-up enforcement actions against elephant poachers and illegal ivory traders in Republic of Congo have led to a wave of arrests in the country over the past two months. Anti-poaching initiatives resulting in the arrests of three people were conducted by African Parks’ Anti-Poaching Unit at Odzala-Kokoua National Park.African Parks is a nonprofit organization that “takes total responsibility for the rehabilitation and long-term management of national parks in partnership with governments and local communities.” At 13,500 square kilometers, Odzala-Kokoua is the Congo’s largest national park and is located in the second largest rainforest region in the world. In addition, the arrests of eight people were initiated by the nonprofit Project for the Application of Law for Fauna, PALF, working with the national police, the Gendarmerie Nationale. African Parks congratulates the Congolese Ministry of Forest Economy and Sustainable Development, which is responsible for the country’s elephant protection efforts; the Gendarmerie Nationale; PALF and Odzala-Kokoua’s Anti-Poaching Unit on these recent breakthroughs. “The growing list of arrests is a testimony to the fact that our combined tactics are delivering results in the fight against elephant poaching in the region,” said African Parks CEO Peter Fearnhead. In October, two poachers were arrested on the eastern boundary of the park by Odzala’s Anti-Poaching Unit. They admitted selling ivory to a Chinese national, an employee of the China Road and Bridge Corporation, CRBC. His driver also was arrested. The men were found in possession of pieces from three tusks which had been stashed at the CRBC camp at Moyoye. On inspecting the camp, Odzala’s Anti-Poaching Unit found evidence that the site had been used to cut and shape ivory into artifacts. The two men were charged but released on bail and the case is currently before the national prosecutor. In November at Yengo control post, southeast of Odzala, a Chinese national was arrested by Odzala’s eco-guards after a piece of ivory was found in his laptop bag. Traces of ivory were discovered again at the CRBC camp at Moyoye where the Chinese national was based. He was arrested but released by the prosecutor based in Ouesso. In late November, anti-poaching operations supported by PALF resulted in the arrests of eight people, with more arrests set to follow. More....

Source: Afriquejet.comThe EU representative in Congo, Marcel Van Opstal, on Wednesday called for the setting up of a court dedicated to check crimes against fauna and guarantee that the law is fully applied.Speaking in Brazzaville at a conference on poaching in Congo, Van Opstal said the EU's proposal for a Prosecutor dedicated to crimes against fauna be examined since the trafficking of ivory was growing considerably.

According to him, the EU was concerned by the dysfunction it had observed in the treatment of offences regarding protected species.

“The EU calls for the strict application of the law (number 37-2008) on fauna and protected areas in Congo,” he said.

He said the EU had observed several cases where there was no investigation, and several others pertaining to declarations of witnesses and articles seized being rejected because of minor problems of procedures.

There were also cases where the sentences had been pronounced but were never carried out.

“While the authorities continue their efforts with a national policy of conservation and declare war against poaching, their actions are being undermined by individual behaviours,” the diplomat emphasised.

Van Opstal noted that despite national and international commitment, some agents of State conspired with the poachers and traffickers, thereby soiling Congo’s international image.

He said the illegal trade would be again discussed at a higher level from January 2014 with more partners.

The exponential militarization of the ivory trade is adding another dimension to what is already a major conservation matter. In a recent talk, “Insurgency, the Ivory Trade and Porous Borders”, Dr. Keith Somerville, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, considered the political aspects of poaching, looking at various rebel groups across the Africa continent – from Cameroon to Kenya – and whether they fund their insurgencies from ivory sales. The historical span of Dr. Somerville’s research encompasses two thousand years of legal ivory trade, including when it was closely associated with the slave trade, up to the late 1980s when the trade in ivory was banned altogether. The illegal profits remained predominantly with corrupt politicians and criminal networks up until the 1980s-90s, said Dr Somerville. Then demand from a booming Japanese middle-class re-ignited poaching, and though the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) banned ivory sales in 1989 they did issue permits allowing sales of existing stockpiles. For Dr. Somerville this period saw the first examples of ‘political poaching’; as the illegal trade intensified, countries with no reported elephant populations filed for ivory export permits and concluded sales, much like conflict diamonds in Liberia. Similarly, Zimbabwean (then Rhodesian) Special Forces, supported by South African military intelligence units, funded operations in Angola and Mozambique with ivory sales through these same CITES loopholes. Today militarized poaching from the Indian to the Atlantic oceans, covering Somalia, Kenya, northern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), south Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR), and northern Cameroon, forms a quasi-continuous zone where porous borders and insurgencies have become interlinked, and to some extent inter-dependent. Dr. Somerville pointed out that there is an “ivory belt” which overlaps with numerous insurgencies; indeed, cross-border poaching incursions into northern Cameroon and the DRC, conducted by the Janjaweed militias as well as shamefully by the Ugandan and Congolese military forces, testifies to the security vacuum in this region. Dr. Somerville includes groups like the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), a nomadic movement that avoids counter-insurgency initiatives and uses ivory as income while their suspected co-operation with the Séléka, currently the dominant security force in CAR, is also a matter of concern. More....

Source: Uk.prweb.comPress Release The Project for the Application of Law for Fauna (PALF) in the Republic of Congo has today announced one of their most significant operations against the illegal ivory trade. This week, an incredible total of four ivory operations supported by PALF (a collaborative organisation between The Aspinall Foundation, a UK based charity, The Congolese Ministry of Forest Economy and Sustainable Development and the Wildlife Conservation Society), have resulted in the arrests of eight people in these illegal wildlife trafficking groups - whilst more arrests are set to continue. This is one of the most successful hauls of illegal trafficking criminals that PALF and The Aspinall Foundation have been involved in. The major haul started with an enormous elephant tusk seized by PALF and a consortium of NGO’s in the Republic of Congo. Another of the ivory hauls from a dealer in an international trafficking network included a sack full of sculpted ivory. Early on the 30th November, another dealer with sculpted ivory was arrested and most incredibly and later that afternoon, a 32-year-old Chinese national attempted to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight with ivory jewellery after bribing 60.000 FCFA (about $125 USD) to get it through to via ‘a fixer’ said Natafali Honig. Naftali Honig, PALF Co-ordinator explained: “We acted fast on the tip-off about this Ethiopian Airlines passenger and within minutes his hand luggage was searched, we found nothing. Then after I tried to ask him about the ivory, we suspected that the illegal haul was in his checked luggage, which was at that time being loaded onto the plane. The rest of the passengers had already boarded the plane whilst we continued to question the passenger.” After holding up the flight to find the unnamed passenger’s luggage, authorities were able to confirm that there was in fact a suitcase full of ivory on board the plane. A team of people from Eaux et Forêts working at Maya Maya Airport in Brazaville, the Departmental Director of the Lusaka Agreement Task Force and the National Gendarmerie ended up arresting the Chinese national and the person who facilitated the passage of his luggage for money. This week has been a phenomenal success for the Congolese Ministry of Forest Economy and Sustainable Development and especially for the Gendarmerie Nationale, whose tirelessness throughout the week made this huge operation possible. These seizes were conducted all over Brazzaville, in the morning, in the middle of the day and at night. Naftali Honig, the PALF Co-ordinator explained: “These are not easy cases – corruption attempts are rife and I was particularly moved when one Gendarme asked me and the PALF legal team to work extra hard to assure that these criminals are prosecuted and put into jail so that their hard work was not for nothing.” More....

Source: DW.deBy Jürgen SchneiderAlong with the Amazon, the Congo Basin is of the world’s "green lungs.” Its millions of square kilometers of rain forest are important not just for the global climate, but as a habitat for a diverse range of flora and fauna. But poachers are taking advantage of the region’s political instability. The heavily-armed and well-organized poachers focus largely on ivory from forest elephants. A transnational forest protection scheme involving the Central African Republic, Cameroon and the Republic of Congo is trying to protect the animals. Financial support is coming from Germany. Video.

Source: Smh.com.auBy Tim Barlass Have you ever seen been offered the chance to have a holiday snap taken with a cute monkey? Did you post the image on Facebook or ''like'' a similar picture on a friend's page? Then consider this message from the British animal charity Care for the Wild International: in doing so you have made the animal trade more lucrative and ''liked'' animal abuse and cruelty. The real story behind the happy monkey snap is that the tourist stunt is contributing to the decline of many primates. The animal was most likely taken from his family at a tender age and his mother inevitably killed. The monkey would have had his teeth and claws ripped out to ensure he did not scratch or bite during the photo shoot. Considered a working animal, not a pet, the source of revenue is ultimately dumped or killed when it is deemed no longer cute enough to be in front of the lens. The charity's chief executive Philip Mansbridge said it was easy to get caught up in the moment when on holiday, so having a photo taken with a cute wild animal may seem like a good idea. But if people knew the true story behind these animals then they would learn to say no. ''If you see a wild animal that isn't in the wild, then it's time to ask questions,'' Mansbridge said. ''If it's a young animal, where's its mum? Why is it so tame?'' The World Wildlife Fund estimates that the population of chimpanzees in the wild could be as low as 172,000. Chimps, officially ranked as endangered, have already disappeared completely from four countries.Lou Grossfeldt, supervisor of primates at Taronga Zoo said baby chimps may look gorgeous but they were also vulnerable.''By the time they reach five years of age, these animals are incredibly strong and powerful and they need to be tied up. More....

Source: Nature.comBy Daniel CresseyPoaching by its very nature happens out of sight and out of hearing of most people. But in the forests of Africa, someone is listening. Last week, audio from the Elephant Listening Project was released, featuring the actual moment an elephant was killed by poachers (see video). The low-frequency recording, which sounds almost abstract, was captured by some of the special microphones set up by the project in the forests of Gabon and the Republic of Congo. The aim is to monitor the sounds that forest elephants use to communicate, which humans can sometimes feel but barely hear.Nature interviewed behavioural ecologist Peter Wrege of the The Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who directs the project, which is largely funded by the US Fish and Wildlife Service programme ‘Wildlife Without Borders’. How does the listening project help elephant conservation? For a species that uses acoustic communication, it is possible to monitor aspects of its ecology and behaviour by placing efficient recorders in multiple, remote locations where they can record for long periods of time without human presence influencing the animal's behaviour. For example, other than counting dung piles along a transect to try to estimate population density, the only typical method of collecting data on forest elephants is by direct observation at clearings in the forest, measuring things like sex ratio, visitation frequency and reproduction. Although some of these measurements can't be made just from acoustic records — at least not yet — relative numbers of elephants and reproductive activity can be measured, and not just at clearings but anywhere. And can it help to stop poaching? In the area of [stopping\ illegal hunting and poaching, we have made some important contributions. Acoustic methods allow us to directly measure the hunting pressure in a protected area because we are recording actual gunshots. We helped to expose, for example, that there was a lot more illegal hunting going on in Loango National Park in Gabon than had been thought, and this has given impetus to fielding an anti-poaching team in the most-at-risk parts of this protected area. More....

Source: Scientificamerican.comBy Traci Watson Times are grim for the king of the beasts. Roughly 35,000 African lions roam the savannahs, down from more than 100,000 half a century ago, thanks to habitat loss, declining numbers of prey animals and killing by humans. One study estimated that fewer than 50 lions (Panthera leo) live in Nigeria and reported no sign of the animal in the Republic of the Congo, Ghana or Côte d’Ivoire. Now a king-sized controversy is brewing over a proposal to shore up lion populations before it is too late. A prominent lion researcher has called for limiting conflict between humans and lions by erecting fences around reserves containing wild lions. The idea has split scientists, with those opposed to the idea arguing that fences could do more harm than good. The ensuing debate has also laid bare fundamental differences of opinion about how to preserve lions and other species, and raised concerns that a key challenge to lion conservation — lack of funds — is being ignored while scientists trade jabs about fences. When he began the research that kicked off the furor, Craig Packer of the University of Minnesota in St Paul, who studies lions at Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, intended to determine only the cost of conserving lions. But something more provocative emerged from his data. In work reported earlier this year in Ecology Letters, he and 57 co-authors calculated lion densities at 42 African reserves and found, Packer says, that the only variables that matter for density are “dollars and fence — nothing else”. He adds that “the fence has a very profound, powerful effect”, because it prevents lions from preying on livestock and people, meaning fewer lions are killed in retaliation. Packer would like to see fences around even some of the largest protected areas such as Tanzania’s 47,000-square-kilometer Selous Game Reserve. But the paper triggered heated discussion, both online and at meetings, leading four months later to the publication of a response signed by 55 researchers. They argue that Packer’s analysis is wrong to use lion population density as its sole yardstick. By that measurement, they say, a dense population of several dozen lions in a small reserve is a success, whereas a large reserve containing 600 lions is a failure. When the authors restricted their study to lion populations whose density did not exceed the land’s capacity to support them and controlled for a reserve’s management budget, they found no relationship between fencing and density. More....

Source: WCS.orgSentenced on November 7, 2013 by the Ouesso Court in northern Congo for collectively illegally detaining 20 tusks of ivory, a leopard skin and an illegal firearm, Abdoulaye Mahamat and Dissaka Daring have been transferred from Ouesso to Brazzaville Prison on November 17th 2013. They will each serve 3 years in prison.

For more than a decade, Congolese Justice was not sufficiently able to deter Mr. Abdoulaye Mahamat from ivory traffic. Born in Chad, Abdoulaye has lived in Congo for many years where he has continually trafficked ivory and been arrested at least three times, possibly more, and convicted twice.

When arrested in 2011, a colleague named Hassan who he was sentenced together with was also found in possession of 7.62x39mm bullets. He trafficked these to furnish poachers so that they could shoot elephants.

The Yaoundé Declaration, where the Republic of Congo was present, recently named elephants Universal Heritage. Traffickers like Abdoulaye, unfortunately, continually massacre this heritage.

In 2011, Abdoulaye was also transferred from Ouesso to Brazzaville Prison. That time, he was transferred with 4 park rangers, each sentenced to 2 years in prison, for having aided Dissaka Daring in transporting ivory and an AK assault rifle. Abdoulaye was sentenced to 18 months in prison and Dissaka to 12 months.

Once again, Dissaka and Abdoulaye find themselves together at the Brazzaville Prison, this time serving three (3) years each.

Congolese law is strong for the Central African sub-region. Multiple wildlife criminals have been sentenced to the maximum penalty of five years in prison. This sentence has been handed down in Congo 5 times in 2013 alone, but never by the Ouesso Court.

This time, PROGEPP, a partnership of the Government of Congo, WCS, and the logging company CIB, intercepted Dissaka Daring with 16 tusks destined for Abdoulaye. Abdoulaye was, in turn, arrested following a search of his home by Police, which revealed another 4 tusks and a leopard skin. More....

Source: Theecologist.orgBy Verity LargoPoaching is no longer about one man and a bow and arrow: it is a huge business, akin to international networks, sprawling across continents. From baby cheetahs, 'medicinal' rhino horn to carved elephant tusks, poaching is identified as a major threat to global stability, the environment. "Most days I'm bouncing around on bad roads for hours, I've lost count of the punctures." Helen O'Neill lifts out her two rocks that are wedging the back wheels stationary, plops them in the car, takes out the jack, and fixes on the newly punctured tyre to the tailgate of the jeep. Helen's morning commute must rank as one of the most splendid in the world. At 6.20am, after a quick boiled kettle wash in a bowl, a coffee, she drives off into the 2200 sq km area of the North Serengeti that she surveys, as part of the Cheetah Project. We're out looking for cheetahs with the Serengeti Cheetah Project. The main remit is to compile basic information about their habits and movements, across a long period of time. We've been driving for four hours, past numerous delighted tourists ogling bucking wilderbeest, startled zebra, colobus monkey, hartebeest, dik diks, oryx, rindebuck, lions and even a leopard. The cheetah project works in collaboration with Serengeti National Parks, and Tanzanian Wildlife Research institute, the most famous, and oldest cheetah project in the world. Helen isn't comfortable commenting on poaching. The conservation world in East Africa is highly political, and people must tread carefully: their visas and ability to keep working in a focussed area rest on not being too critical of East African governments. The tourist industry needs live elephants, not slaughtered carcasses that are funding arms to bomb shopping malls. Poaching is literally the elephant in the room. It's everywhere and massively on the rise. Al Jazeera says sixty elephants a day are killed in Tanzania. Recently the East African Wildlife Society commented:"The data collected over the last 24 months shows a massive escalation in the rate of illegal killing of elephants. The situation is now so bad that by most measures it can be considered out of control and certainly beyond the limits of what elephant populations can sustain."More....

Across the Republic of Congo, wildlife traffickers are feeling the long arm of the law, thanks to the dedicated work of eco-guards in Odzala-Kokoua National Park and the Project for the Application of Law for Fauna (PALF). Two Chinese nationals identified as an alleged ivory trader and his driver were arrested on October 15 by eco-guards working in Odzala-Kokoua National Park. During the course of his arrest, the ivory trader — caught red-handed with ivory — tried unsuccessfully to bribe a member of Odzala’s anti-poaching unit. The two men were transported to the police station in Ouesso the following day to make their official statements. They were both charged, but released. The case is currently before the country’s national prosecutor, according to a media release by African Parks.The Odzala eco-guard unit comprises former poachers who applied for the park’s ground-breaking amnesty programme at the end of 2012. “While poaching is a more lucrative occupation than being an eco-guard, the amnesty recruits were attracted by the benefits of a stable, legal job with social security benefits,” said African Parks’s manager for Odzala-Kokoua National Park, Leon Lamprecht. Some also admitted that Odzala’s anti-poaching efforts were making it increasingly difficult for them to continue hunting illegally and avoid arrest. Five of the amnesty applicants confessed to previously working with a major regional ivory kingpin, Ghislain Ngondjo, known by the nickname “Pepito”, and their statements were admitted to the court in Ewo where he was tried. “Pepito” was convicted in July and is currently serving a five-year prison sentence. More....

Source: Swampland.time.comBy Maya RhodanThe Obama administration has a message for consumers and vendors of illegal ivory: the United States will not stand for poaching. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is hoping that the message is heard loud and clear when they use a rock-crusher to pulverize six tons of ivory the government has seized over the past 25 years on Nov. 14. At the national wildlife repository in Denver, hordes of raw and carved tusks, ivory ornaments, and jewelry will be destroyed in the Obama administration’s latest effort of promoting wildlife conservation. The African Conservation Act largely banned imports and exports of the material in 1989 after a surge in poaching wiped out nearly two-thirds of the African Elephant species. Since, the U.S. has been seizing ivory at borders, shipping ports and other points of entry. “We are taking an important step next week, said Daniel Ashe, the Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, at a press event at the Foreign Press Center on Tuesday. “We’re doing that in the hopes of raising the profile of this issue and also to try to inspire other nations around the world to deal with their stockpiles.” Though the crush is the first American ivory destruction, other countries have been destroying the material for some time. Over the summer, the Philippines crushed and burned 5 tons of ivory from its stockpile to prevent officials from stealing and selling the material on the black market. In 2011, the Kenyan president also burned their ivory to send a message to poachers, though fire alone doesn’t destroy the material. Ivory has been estimated as worth more than cocaine and gold on the black market, with annual revenue of about $10 billion. Destroying the stockpiles, officials say, is intended to show poachers and traders that ultimately there is no market for the material. “There shouldn’t be a value on ivory,” Ed Grace, the deputy chief of law enforcement at the Fish and Wildlife Service, told TIME. More....

Source: Theepochtimes.comBy Gary FeuerbergPoaching and international trafficking of elephant ivory and rhino horns has worsen in the last couple of years, and now the future of elephant and rhino populations in central Africa are in jeopardy. The prices and demand for these animal parts are soaring in Asia. Wildlife conservationists are fighting back, pilot-testing new technologies, such as drones and DNA analysis, and seeking improved ranger training. The battle between the poachers and the conservationists may be won or lost on whoever has the superior technology. Programs that come to the aid of the beleaguered rangers also show promise in helping to reverse the trend. “We see a crisis unfolding before our eyes, an unprecedented rate [of poachers\ we haven’t seen for close to a decade,” said Crawford Allan, World Wildlife Fund senior director, and author of several publications on wildlife trafficking, species conservation, and wildlife enforcement. Allan said technology is more important now than ever in meeting the crisis. “The technology that is currently available is not affordable or transferable for protecting elephants and rhinos for conservation purposes,” Allan said Oct. 31 at a news conference at the National Press Club. The Richardson Center for Global Engagement, WWF, and African Parks sponsored this news conference and a workshop for experts from government, NGOs and technology firms. The three organizations have joined together in a partnership to combat wildlife trafficking in Africa. Allan said that protecting wildlife, such as elephants and rhinoceroses, has changed dramatically, with increasing demand from Asia, and “poachers who own the night,” rangers “underequipped and under resourced,” with the “frightening job to guard wildlife” against well-armed opponents, militias and terrorists. More....

Source: CITES.orgThe International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) delivered a two-day cutting-edge training workshop to wildlife law enforcement officials from 21 countries in Nairobi, Kenya, from 30 to 31 October 2013. The training strengthened the skills of law enforcement officers from across Africa and Asia, to combat transnational organized wildlife crime more effectively through the use of a broad range of innovative and specialized investigation techniques. It further exposed these officers to hands on training on the use of tools and services available to them through ICCWC partner agencies and highlighted the importance of increased international collaboration,to facilitate multidisciplinary investigations and law enforcement responsesacross range, transit and destination States, targeting the sophisticated criminal networks behind transnational organized wildlife crime,to bring the kingpins behind these networks to justice’. Mr John Scanlon, Secretary-General of CITES, stated that ‘the purpose of ICCWC is to bring coordinated support to national wildlife law enforcement agencies and to the sub-regional and regional networks that, on a daily basis, work to counter the illegal wildlife trade’. He further emphasized that ‘it is crucial that all available tools such as the secure communication channels and databases provided by INTERPOL and the World Customs Organization, and specialized investigation techniques, such as controlled deliveries, anti-money laundering and asset recovery tools and risk profiling, are utilized to the full extent possible, in the fight against illegal wildlife trade’. Mr. Bonaventure Ebayi, Director of the Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF) said: ‘I welcome the training on intelligence gathering, management and analysis, as well as on questioning techniques, operational best practices and operational planning provided to participants. This newly acquired knowledge will empower wildlife law enforcement officers to combat the growing global challenge posed by wildlife crime more effectively’. He implored participants to among other things share knowledge and experiences during the training and to share it with their counterparts at national level as they return to their respective countries. More....

Source: Express.co.ukBy Anna PukasIt is gruesome in the extreme but demand is high and potential profits higher. Indeed it is the world's fifth most lucrative criminal activity after trafficking drugs, people, oil and counterfeiting.

The fact that trafficking wildlife - or more accurately wildlife parts - is illegal is no deterrent. When a business is worth between £4-6billion globally people will take the risk.

The international sale of ivory has been banned since 1989 yet elephants are being slaughtered for their tusks as never before. Around 32,000 were killed in Africa last year, which equates to 96 a day.

The ban may have quashed the ivory trade but it also sent ivory prices rocketing. Poaching is again as prevalent as it was when the ban came into force and in 2011 it even superseded pre-ban levels. The situation is so dire wildlife experts now believe more elephants are dying than are being born and that the African elephant could be extinct by 2025.

Kenya's elephant population has plummeted from 167,000 to only 35,000 in 30 years - just one generation. The Minkebe National Park in Gabon has lost two thirds of its elephants (around 11,000) to poaching since 2004. The number of African forest elephants (different from their savannah-roaming cousins) has fallen by 72 per cent since 2002 and only 80,000 remain in the wild.All so that the emerging newly cash-rich middle classes in China can drape themselves in carved ivory trinkets or eat with ivory chopsticks or adorn their homes with - what obscene irony - ivory elephant ornaments.

The amount of illegal ivory seized worldwide went up by 50 per cent in 2012 and experts say half of it found its way to China, where legitimate trade in ivory is limited to five tons a year which does not come close to meeting the demand. More....

Source: Motherboard.vice.comBy Jason KoeblerFormer poachers in the Republic of Congo’s largest protected area have pulled a 180, becoming protectors of the park.

Launched earlier this year, one of the world’s first “Poacher to Protector” programs has turned 28 former poachers into park rangers at Odzala National Park, a protected area that takes up more than 8,400 square miles of central Congo.

As part of the program, candidates had to confess to their crimes and turn in their illegal weapons. According to Leon Lamprecht, manager of the park, details of their crimes were instrumental in bringing down Ngondjo Thislain, a poaching kingpin who was recently sentenced to five years in jail based on evidence gathered through the program.

“They’ve played a vital role in performing research and monitoring functions on paramilitary groups,” Lamprecht said at an event announcing the initiative, held in Washington, D.C.

Nicole Mollo, African Parks’ director of philanthropy in the US, said that the information gathering aspect of the program has been vital to making a series of high-level arrests.

“What’s critical about this is the information that lies with these individuals, the intelligence gathering we can get. Without it, we’d be paralyzed on the ground,” she said.

The program has also allowed park rangers to infiltrate the paramilitary groups that often facilitate poaching. More....

The Richardson Center for Global Engagement and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) co-hosted a forum today about the best ways to integrate state-of-the-art technologies and training methods into wildlife protection and enforcement in key parts of Africa. The effort kicked off in Washington, D.C. at a meeting of dozens of experts from government, NGOs, technology firms, and frontline conservation and enforcement officials who are working to identify and deploy promising anti-poaching practices and tools.

The Richardson Center also announced its plan to establish the first-of-its-kind, permanent ranger training school in the Republic of Congo, in collaboration with African Parks, based on a successful "poacher-to-protector" amnesty program, and create an international legal framework to dedicate funds raised from the forfeiture of seized assets to support anti-poaching efforts.

"Working together, we can transform wildlife conservation throughout Africa and the world," said Gov. Bill Richardson. "We know that reaching and protecting the most remote locations is no easy task. It takes applying the most advanced, real-time surveillance technology. It takes trained and committed rangers and guards. It takes an infrastructure that sustains the effort over the long haul. And it takes international cooperation and strategic planning. This partnership and these new resources will help us get there."

The illegal wildlife market has exploded in recent years, fueling a growing demand for elephant ivory, rhino horn, tiger products and other threatened species. Wildlife criminal groups—many of them "Mafia-style" gangs—that trade in illicit wildlife and wildlife products often act with impunity. Today, this illegal trade is the fifth most profitable in the world, with an estimated value of $10 billion annually.More than 30,000 elephants are killed each year -- nearly 100 per day. A growing ivory demand in Asia, a thriving illegal international market and unstable political environments all contribute to a disturbing rise in poaching. More....

Last weekend security operatives, working hand in hand with enforcement officers from the Uganda Wildlife Authority, arrested two Chinese and two Guineans in Kampala, with a haul of over 1.9 tons of blood ivory ready to be shipped out of the country. Earlier in the week 116 kilos of ivory were confiscated at the airport.

Following that seizure, UWA intelligence personnel were able to confiscate the larger consignment which was due to leave the country by road to Mombasa and make the arrests. The Guineans, according to a Kampala based source, were already arrested two weeks earlier and their testimony thought to be crucial in arresting the Chinese. Ugandan officials were swift in reassuring that the ivory was not likely to have come from inside Uganda but was brought into the country from possibly Eastern Congo or South Sudan, where poaching is rife and little done in terms of law enforcement to protect their elephants or prevent regular smuggling of the contraband out of the country. One of the parcels seized appears to have been sent by overland bus from Bujumbura / Burundi to Uganda, but as no poaching figures are available from Burundi it is again suspected that the ivory could have come from either neighbouring Congo DR or even from Tanzania, where in recent weeks the government finally seems to take a stand and make a more determined effort to combat poaching and ivory smuggling. The four now in custody in Kampala are considered important elements in the search for financiers and traders and indication was given that more arrests could be made soon to hopefully dismantle the entire smuggling operation using Uganda as a transit point for their criminal activities. Well done UWA.

The effort is being helped by former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, who recently unveiled a three-year, $80 million joint project with nonprofit groups and African nations to end elephant poaching, including setting up new wildlife parks.

But the anti-poaching endeavors are being measured against the grinding poverty that drives Africans to risk their lives to kill elephants and rhinos for their ivory and horns, some wildlife conservationists say. An international panel that governs wildlife trading said that illegal trafficking has at least doubled since 2007, even though it banned the sale of ivory and horns years ago. That panel, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), has made little headway in lowering the demand for the artifacts on the black market, which thrives in Asia, where ornately carved tusks are coveted and some believe that a sprinkle of rhino horn helps fight cancer.Although conservationists view the new U.S. action as not going far enough, they welcomed it as a step forward.“We are getting to the point of no return,” said Richard G. Ruggiero, a former nongovernment conservationist who is now the Africa branch chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Division of International Conservation. “We lacked political will in the U.S., overseas and in consumer nations such as China,” he said. “Without political will, there’s nothing.”

Adding to the pressure to act is growing evidence that terrorist groups have entered the black market, paying poachers to kill the animals and selling their horns and ivory at a premium to middlemen in the United States and Asia to fund operations such as the deadly Sept. 21 attack on a Kenyan shopping mall by the Somali group al-Shabab, a wing of al-Qaeda. More....

In China the penalty for poaching an elephant is death. In Africa, it is considerably less. The irony in this is that the global trade in illegal ivory is driven, for the most part, by China, some of whose citizens are helping to lay waste to Africa’s elephants, largely without fear of retribution. Earlier this year a Chinese smuggler, apprehended in Kenya whilst in transit from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Hong Kong, was fined a mere US$350 for the haul of 439 pieces of ivory found in his possession before being released. That’s less than US$1 apiece. This one incident illustrates perhaps the biggest challenge facing those battling to save Africa’s elephant population from almost certain extinction at the hands of ivory poachers – outdated, and in some cases woefully inadequate legislation and penalties which, rather than acting as a deterrent, actually encourage poaching. Add to the mix corruption and political malfeasance at virtually every level of government, and the word extinction looms larger than ever, unless swift action is taken by African countries to improve the laws supposedly protecting their wildlife. Justice is most certainly not on the side of elephants. In Kenya the current wildlife act caps punishment for the most serious wildlife crimes at a maximum fine of 40,000 Kenyan shillings (around US$470), and a possible jail term of up to 10 years. With a black market price of as much as US$7,000 per kilogram, it is infinitely affordable to get caught with your fingers in the ivory jar. Which is what happened to four Chinese citizens who were apprehended attempting to smuggle thousands of dollars’ worth of ivory out of Kenya. Their punishment? Each was allowed to pay a US$340 fine and then go free.Kenya is far from alone. In neighbouring Uganda, poachers are punished on the same level as petty criminals with small fines or suspended sentences. More....

South African police have arrested a bus crew employed by Citiliner for smuggling 2kgs of ivory worth R1,6 million into that country through the Beitbridge Border Post. The suspects, who are all Zimbabweans, were arrested on Sunday night on the South African side while transporting four elephant tusks.

Limpopo police spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said James Nyirenda (41) and Langton Saka (40) were arrested during routine checks. He said the ivory was hidden underneath some luggage in two of the bus' compartments. Brig Mulaudzi said the duo appeared before a Musina magistrate where charges against Saka were later withdrawn after plea. He said Nyirenda was convicted for smuggling and sentenced to four years imprisonment with an option of paying R8 000 in fine. "The bus was travelling to Johannesburg from Bulawayo in Zimbabwe with the tusks," said Brig Mulaudzi. "When the crew arrived at the South African border they went through all the immigration and customs formalities without declaring their loot. "The case was discovered by alert police officers at the port of entry during routine searches. They found the four tusks hidden in two of the compartments resulting in the arrest of Nyirenda and Saka." More....

Results of a wildlife survey of the Odzala-Kokoua National Park in Congo-Brazzaville (also known as Republic of Congo) undertaken by the Wildlife Conservation Society has indicated that gorilla numbers in the park have fallen from 40,000 in 2005 to just 22,000 in 2012. The survey was conducted in 2012 and commissioned by Africa Parks but has only been published this month. African Parks’ manager for Odzala-Kokoua, Leon Lamprecht, said that the loss of gorillas were from a number of issues not least the widespread deaths caused by the ebola outbreak before 2005. Poaching is also causing a problem as human encroach further into the depths of the park. “Ebola may have removed many of the groups, leaving only solitary males alive and so reducing reproductive capacity, or it may have continued for a number of years after 2005. “We are confident however that our scaled up anti-poaching operations will reduce the hunting pressure on both gorillas and chimpanzees in the park.” The wildlife census also found that chimpanzee numbers were stable between 2005 and 2012. Elephant numbers were higher than expected with 9,600 forest elephants now living in the national park. Both primates and forest elephants are concentrated in the southern sector of the park. 70% of primates live in the south and 65% of the forest elephants reside there. More....